Clint (102:03)
Always say, man, where I was at, they called us the Wild west. Because anything goes. It was w. It. Whatever. Whatever. Every day was an adventure. Yeah, I'm gonna call BS on you. Unless you were in Samara in 2004 because it was. You were driving around in genocide. It was. It was happening all around you, and you were just driving through it. So we had a three story schoolhouse that we had converted into a cob. And our Alpha Company was in there. And they would rotate guys from the brigade that were in, you know, safer spots they would rotate them in. And one of my best friends in the whole world, Jermaine, he did a rotation there for like a month, but a month there was like doing 12 months. And I always tip my hat to the, the guys from Alpha Company that lived there for at least 12 months, they, they lived a Vietnam lifestyle while the rest of us was watching DVDs. And so every day we would drive in there, into the city in the Samara. Samara was so wild that even when Saddam was in charge, he built the highway around Samara. So it comes right up to it and then it does like a sea and goes all the way around it and then takes off straight again. So we, we would go tomorrow every day to check in with the, the company there. And it was called Uvani, and it was a three story schoolhouse surrounded by Jersey barriers and whatever. So they had like these, I don't know exactly what you would call them. It was like a 20 foot jersey barrier and that would barely get up to the third floor, if that. And so we were pulling in one day and we got out of the trucks and we went inside to talk to them before we went on our patrol or whatever. And we walked in, we went up to the second floor, which was like the command center, and we walked in there and we're talking to him. And the whole building shook. Something hit the building and everything shook. And all the, even though they, you know, daily swept and mopped and did whatever they could, it shook everything in the building to the point that the whole building went hazy while you were inside of it. And so then we ran up, somebody said, I think a mortar hit the top of the building. And on top of the building was, they was at, at a minimum four soldiers up there, four or six. And they had, they had saws and 240s and they also had a grenade launcher up there. And so we thought that the, the bit top of the building had got hit by mortar. So we all ran up on the top and when we ran, the guys that were already up there, they were already shooting. So we ran up and one of those 20 foot, 30 foot, whatever they are, I don't know, Jersey Bears got blown down and a, a car or a truck or whatever had drove into it and blew up and knocked the wall down. And so we're, we run up there and they're shooting at the the truck. So we run up there and I, I flip my, my, over my stuff over cinema. And then three or four guys ran through the wall and we just start lighting them up. Those, those saws, those two 40s and, and the guys on individual M4s just lighting them up, fall on the ground. I mean, we're making them dance. You know, we're. I mean there's 200 rounds in each guy at a minimum. At a, at a minimum, if not a thousand. And we're making them dance. And then the bodies blow up. And one of the bodies, it didn't blow up all the way. Whatever it did, it made it spin. And when it spun, it hit a doorway on the first floor and knocked the board down. And then the torso that, that insurgent landed on one of the platoon sergeants and then he became the S3 NCO. I see instantly he was done. I'm out. That, that's a wrap. So, so we're standing up there and you know, a couple other dudes tried to run through and we lit them up too. And it was easy. It was, I mean, it was like, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. It really was. And so right after that we run down to the, the bottom floor and we run up there and we're, you know, doing a battle, battle damage assessment. We're checking all these blown up bodies and looking at everything. And my interpreter, my interpreter, his name is Jimmy. And I've been nice to Jimmy my whole life. You know, the whole time we were over there, I was nice to Jimmy. I was that guy. And if you don't make fun of the interpreter, he thinks he's your best friend. So Jimmy, Jimmy had, at the end of this escapade, Jimmy invited me to, to his hometown in Chicago to hang out with him and his wife and his family. And he said that, you know, bring my wife. But I wouldn't see my wife the whole time I was there. The only time I would see her was when they were serving dinner to us. But other than that, I wouldn't see my wife the whole time. I said, Jimmy, I don't think that my wife is going to be down with that. But so we're out there and we're, we're walking around and we're checking the, the, the, you know, the, the battle site or whatever. And Jimmy the interpreter says, turns to me and he says, you know, I mean, we're looking at body parts. And Jimmy turns to me, Jimmy's like, he's probably close to 50 and he turns to me and he says, sergey Ludwig nut sack. I said, yeah, Jimmy, I hear you, man. Just pick it up. And I'm thinking, talking about a nut sack from Assault. That's what we call the bag that hangs under a saw when you want to carry less than 50 rounds.
